Should be taken as compliment: Sunny Leone after plagiarizing painting

Leone claimed that she was given a photograph of an art piece that she loved and decided to paint.

She said, "At no time did I claim to come up with the idea."

Further, she added, "It should be taken as a compliment as it was being donated to cancer patients for charity."

She also deleted the Instagram post of the plagiarized painting.

Leone had posted the statement as a comment on a post by Diet Sabya, famous for exposing fashion rip-offs.

Replying to Leone's comment, Favre wrote, "A credit would've been the minimum. Intellectual property is a thing, you know? What if I didn't want a copy of my work to be copied by you and auctioned? The cause is commendable. The attitude? Not so much."

Notably, several others criticized the actor for copying the artist's work without credit.

Diet Sabya called stealing the artist's work dirty, while several Instagram users pointed out that Leone's statement that it "should be taken as a compliment" was pretty disrespectful.

"At no point does copyright infringement need to be 'taken as a compliment.' What a shame," wrote one Instagram user in the replies.